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P.K. Subban Not Travelling With Predators

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After missing Saturday night’s shootout loss against the New York Rangers, P.K. Subban did not accompany the Nashville Predators on their upcoming two-game road trip, according to Adam Vingan of The Tennessean.

Subban is listed as day-to-day with an upper-body injury. Saturday was the first game that Subban missed as a member of the Predators. Subban has seven goals and 17 points in 29 games so far this season.

GM David Poile recalled Adam Pardy from the Milwaukee Admirals to replace Subban on the roster. Pardy has appeared in one game with the Predators this season. He split last season between the Winnipeg Jets and Edmonton Oilers, posting four assists in 23 games. Based on Vingan’s report, the Predators’ defense is as follows:

Josi-Ellis
Ekholm-Granberg
Irwin-Weber
Pardy

Nashville plays in Philadelphia on Monday night and New Jersey on Tuesday night. Subban may be able to join the team in New Jersey, but it’s not known how serious the injury is. The Predators have struggle of late, losing seven of 10 and falling out of a playoff spot to sixth in the Central Division.

Monday Morning Recalls And Demotions

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10:23am: TSN’s Pierre LeBrun reports that Mike Babcock announced that Tyler Bozak and Ben Smith are both considered day-to-day with a lower-body injury and an upper-body injury respectively.

In Nashville, the Predators have recalled defenseman Adam Pardy from the AHL, as P.K. Subban will be out of the lineup. Subban did not accompany the Predators on their current two-game road trip.

9:53am: A couple Ontario-based NHL teams have made roster moves on Monday morning.

The Ottawa Senators have assigned Casey Bailey and Ben Harpur to the Binghamton Senators of the AHL, according to Bruce Garrioch. The right-winger Bailey was held pointless in two games with the Senators, but has 14 points in 25 games with the AHL’s Senators. Harper appeared in one game and was also held pointless. The defenseman has three assists in 20 AHL games this season. Garrioch reports that the demotions were made because Fredrik Claesson is ready to return after suffering a lower-body injury earlier this month.

The Senators are not skating on Monday, so it’s not yet known how severe Andrew Hammond’s injury is. Hammond left Sunday night’s game just 16 minutes in with an apparent ankle injury. Should the Hamburglar be unable to go, Garrioch suggests that Matt O’Connor would get the call. Starting goaltender Craig Anderson is away from the team to be with his wife Nicholle, and is not expected back before Christmas.

Over to Toronto, where the Maple Leafs have announced the recall of center Frederik Gauthier. In a related move, injured defenseman Martin Marincin has been placed on injured reserve. Marincin is expected to be out for four-to-six weeks after sustaining a lower-body injury last week. Gauthier has four points in 16 games with the Toronto Marlies of the AHL. The Athletic’s David Alter reports Gauthier is centering the fourth line at practice on Monday morning.

Komarov-Kadri-Soshnikov
JVR-Nylander-Marner
Hyman-Matthews-Brown
Martin-Gauthier-Leivo

The Maple Leafs are without three regulars at practice this morning; defenseman Jake Gardiner, Tyler Bozak and Ben Smith were all missing, so Alter wonders if that explains Gauthier’s recall. Much-scratched defenseman Frankie Corrado was bounced between pairings throughout practice but will be in the lineup when the Maple Leafs host former coach Randy Carlyle and the Anaheim Ducks on Monday night.

Bob Hartley To Coach Latvia

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Bob Hartley, the 2015 Jack Adams Trophy winner, will be named the head coach of the Latvian national team, according to Aivis Kalniņš.

According to Kalniņš, all that’s left to do is sign the contract. In an interesting note, Sportsnet’s Mark Spector notes that Hartley was chosen over finalists Patrick Roy and Ron Rolston.

The legendary Avalanche goaltender resigned as the team’s coach in August over disagreements on player decisions like the Nick Holden trade. Rolston has previously coached college hockey, several AHL teams, and the Buffalo Sabres.

Hartley, a veteran of nearly 1000 NHL games, most recently coached the Calgary Flames, but was fired last summer after missing the playoffs. His Jack Adams trophy came following the 2014-15 season where the Flames rode unsustainable percentages and got to the second round of the playoffs. Hartley has previously won the Stanley Cup with the Colorado Avalanche in 2001.

Hartley is a good coach to motivate Latvian players, who will have to out-work their opponents in order to have a chance against highly-skilled international teams. Former Latvian coach Ted Nolan and goaltender Kristers Gudlevskis nearly managed to beat Canada at the 2014 Sochi Olympics; Canada’s 2-1 win was one of the most exciting games of the entire tournament. Latvia was able to score on Canada, which is something that international powerhouses USA and Sweden was not able to do.

Maple Leafs Notes: Marincin, Corrado, Matthews

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According to a variety of NHL reporters including Chris Johnston, Kristen Shilton, and David Alter, the Toronto Maple Leafs will be without Martin Marincin for the next four-to-six weeks.

The big defenseman reportedly has a lower-body injury. It was previously reported as a potential back injury, after Marincin left Saturday night’s game versus the Bruins after falling awkwardly. Marincin has 5 points in 16 games so far this season, a much better pace than any previous season in his career.

This could be an opportunity for Frankie Corrado to see some playing time in the NHL. Corrado recently expressed disappointment with Mike Babcock’s handling of him in his two seasons with his hometown Maple Leafs, having played just 40 games out of a possible 111. He’s played just once this season. Corrado was a fifth-round pick of the Vancouver Canucks, but was claimed on waivers last October. The Leafs have carried him as an eighth defenseman for the majority of that time to avoid losing him on waivers.

[Related: Maple Leafs Depth Chart]

Meanwhile, Maple Leafs’ first-overall pick Auston Matthews faced his childhood team, the Arizona Coyotes, for the first time in his career. Matthews is a native of Scottsdale, Arizona and has skated with players like Shane Doan in summers past.

While Matthews scored his fourteenth goal of the season in his first game against the Coyotes, Toronto ultimately lost in the shootout at the hands of former Leaf Peter Holland. Holland was traded to the Coyotes one week ago after a tough start to the season with the Maple Leafs, where he only appeared in eight games.

Snapshots: Sabres, McDavid, Meier, Burakovsy

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The Buffalo Sabres will be getting back a defenseman soon.

NHL Buffalo correspondent Joe Yerdon reported that one Sabres coach Dan Bylsma expects one of Zach Bogosian or Taylor Fedun to travel with the team on their upcoming road trip. Meanwhile, injured forward Tyler Ennis is skating on his own as he makes his way back from groin surgery. Bogosian and Ennis have been out since early November, while Fedun has been out since the beginning of December.

The Sabres host the New York Islanders on Friday night, so new Sabres winger Kyle Okposo will face his former team for the first time after nine years on Long Island/ Brooklyn. Okposo leads the Sabres in scoring with 21 points in 29 games, while his replacement on the Islanders, Andrew Ladd, has just seven points in that stretch. Okposo’s 21 points would rank second on the Islanders, behind only John Tavares.

  • Edmonton Oilers center and budding superstar Connor McDavid should win the Hart Trophy, argues Ryan Lambert of Puck Daddy. Lambert took a look at the Oilers advanced stats with McDavid on the ice compared to when he’s not on the ice, and it isn’t pretty: when McDavid isn’t on the ice, the Oilers are in the bottom-half in every category for each stat for all teams from 2007-2016, but jump to mostly the top end (including some NHL bests) when McDavid is on the ice. Lambert compares McDavid’s affect to that of Taylor Hall’s tenure in Edmonton, in that the Oilers are awful without but the player is so strong that he lifts them to respectability. David Staples of the Edmonton Journal suggests that the Oilers need Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Jordan Eberle to “twist the throttle harder” in order to boost their scoring numbers. Eberle has 23 points in 32 games but could have more, having missed some glorious opportunities while being set up by McDavid; Nugent-Hopkins has struggled with a 5.7% shooting percentage and 15 points in 32 game. More was expected from the pair of $6MM men to help mitigate the loss of Hall.
  • San Jose Sharks rookie Timo Meier will play his first NHL game on Friday night in Montreal, according to lineups posted by TSN 690’s Amanda Stein. Meier, who played junior in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League, has 15 points in 17 games in the AHL so far this season. He was the Sharks’ first pick, ninth overall, in the 2015 NHL draft.
  • The Washington Post’s Isabelle Khurshudyan reports that the Capitals have no timetable for getting Andre Burakovsky back into the lineup. Burakovsky was a healthy scratch in the Capital’s last game, a 4-2 win over the Islanders. He has just two goals and 10 points in 28 games this season.

Stars’ Eakin To Meet With Player Safety

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Dallas Stars center Cody Eakin will be meeting with NHL Player Safety on Friday afternoon.

This comes after he took a run at New York Rangers goaltender Henrik Lundqvist on Thursday night in Dallas. Eakin was given a five-minute major and a game misconduct, while Lundqvist briefly left the game. Despite the fact that Lundqvist was out of the net, the NHL rules clearly state that “a goalkeeper is not ’fair game’ just because he is out of the goal crease area.”

It’s a similar incident to the infamous Milan Lucic–Ryan Miller incident from five years ago. Lucic, then with the Bruins, skated right through the Sabres netminder. Miller, who was out of the net to play the puck, was sent flying. Lucic got a two-minute penalty for charging but did not face any supplemental discipline for the hit.

Eakin has just one assist in 14 games this season, but is coming off three seasons of 35-40 points. He’s working on getting back into game form after injury, but it seems like that may be delayed by a suspension. Lundqvist, meanwhile, returned to the game and finished with 27 saves in a 2-0 win. While he won’t get credit for a shutout because he didn’t play the whole game, it’s still a great return for The King, who had been temporarily displaced by the hot hand of Antti Raanta. Raanta started four straight, with just three goals allowed and two shutouts in the 3-1-0 stretch.

Eakin isn’t the only one who will be meeting with Patrick Burke and Player Safety, as Senators winger Mike Hoffman will also have a disciplinary hearing for cross-checking San Jose Sharks center Logan Couture in the head on Wednesday night.

Snapshots: Three Stars, Metropolitan Division, Laine

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For the second straight week, a Philadelphia Flyer has been named the first star of the NHL.

Jakub Voracek had nine points in four games (3-6-9) as the Flyers went 4-0-0 as they continue their incredible nine-game winning-streak. The high point of the week was a four-point game in the Flyers 6-5 win over the Oilers. Voracek is now third in NHL scoring with 32 points in 31 games behind only Vladimir Tarasenko (32 points in 29 games) and Connor McDavid (39 points in 31 games).

Antti Raanta went 3-0-0 with two shutouts as he temporarily takes the net over from Henrik Lundqvist. His back-to-back shutouts marked the first time that a Rangers goaltender earned back-to-back shutouts since 2003 when Mike Dunham did it. Raanta now has an 8-1-0 record with a sparkling 0.943 SV%.

Sam Gagner may be the best value contract (non entry-level) in the NHL, with 19 points in 25 games for just $650K. He had six points in three games this past week (3-3-6) as the Blue Jackets added to their six game winning streak. He has already surpassed his point totals from last season (16 points in 53 games with an AHL demotion).

  • The Metropolitan Division is the best division in hockey right now, writes NBC Sports’ Jason Brough. The New York Rangers are tied for first in the NHL, but just below them are the defending Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins, the Philadelphia Flyers who have won nine games in a row, the Columbus Blue Jackets who have won 11 of 16 and six in a row, and the reigning President’s Trophy winners in the Washington Capitals. All those teams are four points apart. They’re at least seven points up on the Devils, Hurricanes, and Islanders. The latter has gone 6-1-1 in their last eight, but are still ten points behind the fifth place team. Those top five teams are all in the top eight of the NHL.
  • Patrik Laine is leading all rookies in goal scoring and is third in the entire NHL with 17 goals in 32 games, but he had a rough go last night. With the Jets and Oilers tied at two in the last ten minutes of the third, Jets goalie Connor Hellebuyck kicked a Mark Letestu shot into the slot and Laine one-timed the puck into his own net, in an apparent attempt to clear the puck. It stood up as the winning goal. New Jets captain Blake Wheeler did a good job consoling Laine on the bench and Laine got another shot-on-goal as the Jets fought to tie the game.

Jonathan Quick Not Close To Returning

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It hasn’t been a very quick recovery for an injured Los Angeles Kings goaltender.

Jonathan Quick injured his groin in the Kings’ first game of the season, leaving Jeff Zatkoff and Peter Budaj to mind the net in his expected three-month-long absence. While the Kings have been better than many expected with a record of 14-11-2, they’re still just fifth in the Pacific Division and hanging on to the last Western Conference Wildcard spot.

Coach Darryl Sutter provided an update on his superstar goaltender’s recovery to L.A. Kings Insider:

“In terms of [his progress], he’s just starting moving to the end of training from therapy. He’s still very much in the rehab mode. They’re still talking about a month before he could even begin to say what that next step was. It’s not in this year [2016] before there’s any sort of update.”

That means the Kings will be without Quick until late January or early February. While Budaj has been decent at 0.910 SV%, it’s still below league-average goaltending. The Kings have gone the first two months of Quick’s injury without acquiring another goalie, with just Anders Lindback being brought in to their AHL team on a tryout basis. Quick will be very motivated on his return, as he was rather poor in his World Cup appearance. He was 0-2, with an 0.863 SV% and seven goals against in his two games. If Quick comes back and plays to the high level that he can, then the Pacific Division should be very wary of the Kings.

Notable Major Junior Trades From Recent History

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We reported yesterday that Pierre-Luc Dubois, the 2016 third-overall pick, is about to be traded from the Cape Breton Screaming Eagles to Blainville-Boisbriand Armada when the QMJHL trading period opens on December 18.

While the Screaming Eagles’ return on Dubois won’t be known until that date when the trade goes through, let’s take a look at the most recent top-five picks to be traded in junior:

John Tavares – Tavares was the first player to be granted exceptional status by the OHL; in fact, the rule was colloquially known as the John Tavares Rule for years afterward. Tavares is a little different from the rest of the players on this list, in that he was traded during his draft year, as opposed to after. On January 8, 2009, the Oshawa Generals (who will appear a few more times in this list) traded Tavares, future NHL defenseman Michael Del Zotto, and goaltender Daryl Borden to the London Knights for winger Christian Thomas, defenseman Scott Valentine, goaltender Michael Zador, and six draft picks. Tavares and Del Zotto were rentals who went on to play in the NHL the following seasons, while Borden played three games with the Knights before ending up in senior hockey. Thomas scored 246 points in 212 games with the Generals before turning pro. He’s appeared in 27 NHL games with three points to his name, and 241 AHL games with 125 points. He’s currently a member of the Hershey Bears. Valentine played out his uneventful CHL career in Oshawa and then bounced around North American pro leagues before heading to Europe. Zador is now retired.

Brayden Schenn – The younger Schenn brother was traded while he was playing for Canada at the 2011 World Juniors. The Los Angeles Kings 2009 fifth-overall pick was traded from the Brandon Wheat Kings to the Saskatoon Blades, who were gearing up for a playoff run. Schenn had played just two games that season prior to the WJC due to injury. Schenn was fantastic for the Blades, scoring 53 points in 27 games and another 11 points in 10 playoff games. The Wheat Kings received four draft picks (two first round picks) and two 15-year-old prospects, Tim McGauley and Ayrton Nikkel. Nikkel is now playing Canadian University hockey, while McGauley was actually a member of the Wheat Kings until last year; he’s now on the AHL Hershey Bears roster.

Leon Draisaitl – The Oilers selected Draisaitl third overall in 2014 with high expectations for “The German Gretzky.” Draisaitl had earned that nickname while playing German junior where he scored a ridiculous 192 points in 29 games. He then came to the WHL, where he scored 163 points 128 games before being drafted. With only two actual NHL centers (Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Boyd Gordon) on the roster, Draisaitl made the Oilers out of training camp despite not showing he was ready. He played 37 games with the Oilers, scoring just 2 goals and 9 points before Oilers GM Craig MacTavish orchestrated a trade of Draisaitl’s rights in the WHL. The Memorial Cup-bound Kelowna Rockets acquired Draisaitl from the Prince Albert Raiders for forward Kris Schmidli, defenceman Dalton Yorke and three draft picks. Neither player did much for the Raiders, while Draisaitl scored 53 points in 32 games for the Rockets and was named the MVP of the Memorial Cup, which the Rockets lost to the aforementioned Oshawa Generals in overtime.

Michael Dal Colle – The Islanders’ fifth-overall pick in 2014, Dal Colle had three productive seasons in Oshawa before struggling in his second season, post-draft. Dal Colle was not picked by Canada for the World Juniors and fought with injuries. He had 25 points in 30 games before the Generals traded him on New Years’ Day 2016. The Kingston Frontenacs traded Robbie Burt, a first round pick, two seconds, and two thirds for the Generals captain Dal Colle. The ’99 born Burt has just 12 points in 56 games, and is not ranked by Central Scouting for the upcoming draft. Dal Colle turned it on in Kingston, scoring 55 points in 30 games and is now playing in the AHL, where he has 11 points in 24 games.

Pierre-Luc Dubois Will Be Traded In QMJHL (Updated)

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(2:10pm): While no details on the return package have emerged, Jeff Marek of Sportsnet relays a tweet from Jerome Berube, the head scout in Quebec for HockeyProspect.com, citing the depth of young talent the Armada has along with owning Sherbrooke’s first-round pick, which as of now would be a top-five selection. The suggestion being the Armada has the assets necessary to pry Dubois away from Cape Breton.

Meanwhile, Aaron Portzline of The Columbus Dispatch tweeted that a trade of Dubois was expected, and that the trade to the Armada puts the Blue Jackets prospect in a better situation that should allow the talented pivot to play meaningful hockey deep into the QMJHL season.

(11:59am): Columbus Blue Jackets third overall pick and Quebec Major Junior Hockey League (QMJHL) star Pierre-Luc Dubois will be traded when the QMJHL trading period begins, according to TVA’s Renaud Lavoie.

Dubois will be moving from the Cape Breton Screaming Eagles to the Blainville-Boisbriand Armada.

More to come…

*Glen Miller contributed to this post.

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